Reflections of a Shattered Man
by Misa Hayase
Summary: Chris Redfield, lost and jaded, attempts to find inspiration for just one more mission waiting for him in Africa. This story takes place just before Resident Evil 5.


A distorted reflection in a perfectly normal mirror. His blue eyes gazed into those of his double staring back at him in the glass, but he saw much more than short brown hair that whisped over his forehead in small pieces. Much more than the skin clinging to his cheekbones, the stubble casting a shadow over his chin and jaw. It was, staring back at him, the shattered essence of a man who had failed, a man who had a purpose once but lost it... A man who had once been so charismatic and confident and now was an empty shell forgotten on the dusty floor.

He closed his eyes. The sound of the faucet running, the feeling of the cool liquid in his hands, the splash of it against his face - nerves standing on edge from the needling cold water on his flesh. His large hands remained, palms against the hallows of his cheeks and fingers extended upwards to his forehead in crooked, un-uniformed fashion.

And then Chris opened his eyes again. Peering through the holes in between the digits before him, he looked at his unchanging reflection once more and let his hands slide down and off. His blue orbs diverted their gaze down into the sink and a sharp breath was drawn in through his nose. Leaning over to a towel hanging on the wall, he dried his face and then left the bathroom, taking care to have turned the light off.

Chris had increasingly become a man of detail and observation over the years. The once carefree sharpshooter of the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team who was trusting, who believed people were generally good... This person had vanished and those attributes all but vaporized into ghosts that haunted him eternally. Never again. Never again would he allow it to happen. His close friends lied to and used, led into a trap. These people he saw nearly every day for years, these people who had families and lovers and dreams and bright futures ahead of them... All of their lives considered worthless and disposable. Guinea pigs. And it all happened before their very own eyes.

Wesker. ...Captain. Such a highly respected person. Handsome, dashing, stern, the rock that would never budge, the one Chris himself and all his teammates could rely on... was the one who instrumented everything and led them all to death. It was the hardest lesson he ever had to learn.

Bare feet padding against the coldness of a dark hardwood floor, Chris walked through his apartment lost in these thoughts once again. His entire abode was very neatly maintained, including the small counter which became his bar sporting many bottles of hard liquor. Pulling the right corner of his mouth to the side, eyes closing very slightly as if he was wincing, his fingers deftly unscrewed the bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey and moved a glass next to it. He lifted the bottle from the thick glass handle and tilted it but stopped this action before any of the leathered liquid spilled out. Staring at what was before him in thought, he simply turned upon his heels then, swigged directly from the bottle, and ambled over to the white couch before the closed balcony doors.

Chris leaned back against the plush material and cut his vision off from the world, right hand holding the bottle steady against his thigh. The sting of the alcohol was still present in his throat, the strong scent in his breath.

"It always comes back to you," he declared stolidly to the silence. A forced laugh sounding more like an airy huff rolled off from the top of his mouth and he just shook his head, eyes closing tighter. A softer, more broken reiteration now, "...Always you."

The pain of losing his friends in 1998, the drop kick to the balls when the government refused to hear his story - a survivor of the hell that happened in that mansion - about Umbrella. And how hard he tried. How many he contacted to reveal the truth but his words fell upon ears well-trained to be deafened. The destruction of Raccoon City, the place he called home for many years, because of this federal coverup. His sister's capture and their narrow escape from Rockfort Island. The creatures he fought. The shit he saw. The betrayal bestowed upon him. The days he thought he would never get through relived in vivid nightmares. All of these had their places inside of him and each had its own day to be a worse memory than the others.

But there was one thing that stood out perpetually. One thing that kept his very broken self together and made him a whole person... This one thing that slipped through his hands like sand in the wind. And then she was gone.

Jill.

Chris' eyelashes parted slowly, the white ceiling blurry before his vision cleared. He just stared. Jill was his motivation to keep going, his partner in justice from the beginning when they were both rookies in S.T.A.R.S. He felt an undeniable guilt panging at his insides.. regret.. responsibility.

He had faced Wesker in Antarctica. He knew the man had become inhumanly strong. And yet, he agreed to hunt him down alone with Jill. Why hadn't he insisted that the BSAA have more backup to cover them? He knew, deep inside, that if they ever were to find him that they would both be no match. In all honesty, he'd never expected to encounter this man again who had ruined their lives and then dissipated into thin air.

But, as the story typically went, fate went on to prove Chris had been wrong and deliver a crippling blow once more. The cold leather hands about his neck, the "NO!" that pierced the air, the colliding of his body with the floor as a crashing of shattering glass rang out, how he scrambled to the window, leaned over it with one arm extended as far as it would go, and screamed her name. And yet, no reply came. No reply ever came. Her remains were never found. He could have prevented it.

Why? Why did he keep doing this? What was the point in fighting for? All it ever brought him was loneliness. How many more would he have to see die before it was his turn?

"Just one more, Redfield," the chief said. "I have the highest respect for everything you've done for this campaign. But please, not yet. We need your experience and leadership more than ever for this mission."

Those words from the BSAA chief echoed in his mind suddenly. He'd tried to give his resignation but was asked to stay on for just one more mission. Just one more, just one more. For him, every time over the last few years was "only one more".

Chris raised his head and gazed over to empty luggage sitting neatly in the corner; he would be in Africa soon for a bioterrorism bust. He, the empty soldier fighting a war for no one, would save people who would thank him with smiles and forget him soon after.

The rim of the bottle brought to his lips, he took a long drink of the intoxicating fluid and closed his eyes again. Africa. That would be one hell of a long flight... but there would be no living dead and no viral monsters to combat. All that waited for him was a guy named Irving with a briefcase of potentially dangerous drugs close to his extraction point. He'd be in and out of there in no time. And then what?

No answer came to Chris' mind. Perhaps he would figure it out along the way.


End file.
